


Two roads diverged in a woods...

by aly225



Category: Marvel Cinematic Universe, The Avengers (Marvel Movies), The Avengers (Marvel) - All Media Types
Genre: 2012 AU, 2012 Alternative Timeline, Avengers: Endgame (Movie) Spoilers, BAMF Loki (Marvel), BAMF Tony Stark, Loki escapes with the tesseract, M/M, Other characters will be tagged when they appear, Past Pepper Potts/Tony Stark
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2019-05-22
Updated: 2019-05-21
Packaged: 2020-03-09 09:36:46
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,326
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/18914320
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/aly225/pseuds/aly225
Summary: The Avengers managed to stop the invasion of New York, but lost Loki and the tesseract in the process. Public opinion is not on their side, the team is arguably not a team at all, and Tony's life is falling down around him.But a certain God of Chaos remembers seeing a strange occurrence at the moment of his escape - namely, two Tony Starks at the same point in time. The desperate choice of implied time travel hints at a path towards a dark future,  where the Mad Titan gets too close to succeeding in his goals. Loki and Tony find themselves drawn into a race against time that no-one else believes exists.Through it all, endgame marches ever closer.(Set in the alternative timeline created in Endgame)





	Two roads diverged in a woods...

**Author's Note:**

> Endgame spoilers be heeeere. After watching the movie and realizing both my favourites are sadly gone from the world in this timeline, I have decided to play in another timeline - namely, the 2012 alternative where Loki escapes with the tesseract.

When the pain hits, the first place his mind goes is not, unfortunately, to an inspired thought on how to save himself, or even to some deep and meaningful final words. Instead, he is engulfed in a wave of anxiety and panic as the pressure around his heart squeezes tighter and tighter, and he thinks _fuck, not again_.

The hands that had been grasping him so violently just seconds ago are now trying to steady his head. Voices seem to be barking out orders, but everything is muffled and sounds far away. When he can finally focus his eyes, Thor’s face swims into view; the god’s lips are moving, but Tony can barely concentrate on his words.

‘Breathe!’ Thor commands, his tone urgent.

There is a loud roar, and the Hulk bursts through a wall, scattering bystanders as they scream and begin to run.

‘I have no idea if it’s going to work!’ Thor is saying suddenly, his head blocking the scene of chaos behind him, and his hammer is coming down towards Tony’s chest. Tony wants to flinch away, despite being surrounded on all sides by people before whom he would never normally show weakness. And yet, his body is nearly frozen from the pain emanating from his chest, and the overwhelming and unwelcome fear of dying. He survived a nuclear bomb and a wormhole today, and yet a failing arc reactor was once again threatening to be his fate.

Thor’s hammer connects, there is a jolt of energy, and then Tony is inhaling long, deep breaths.

‘YES!’ Thor celebrates, looking proud of himself. Tony registers in an instant that the pain has gone.

‘That worked a treat. I didn’t know it would be so easy,’ he pushes out, attempting to sound as casual as possible after a near-death experience. Secretary Pierce is peering down at him, and his dark eyes remind Tony more of a predator surveying its prey than a concerned bystander.

‘I had no idea if it was going to work,’ Thor is busy explaining, as Tony twists his head in search of the tesseract’s case. For some reason, his instincts are screaming at him not to let the Secretary’s men take it away. Far better for Thor to remove it from this planet altogether.

‘The case?’ he asks, eyes searching in vain, and Thor frowns in response.

‘The case? The case…Where’s Loki?’

He is gone in a swirl of red cloak.

Tony tries to push himself upright as the chaos continues – people screaming, the Hulk yelling something, and above all the noise, Thor’s plaintive call of ‘LOKI!’ – but his arms shake slightly and he sags back down again, resting his head momentarily on the floor.

‘Stark!’ A hand reaches out, grasping onto his wrist and pulling him upright. ‘You alright?’

He blinks, and there is Captain America, standing in all his red, white and blue glory, complete with ridiculous mask.

‘Never better, Capsicle,’ he grunts, patting the other man on the shoulder patronizingly in a disguised attempt to find his balance. ‘Seems like Thor managed to lose his brother again.’

‘Loki tried to fight me just now,’ Rogers says distractedly, frowning at the pandemonium around them. ‘Looked like me, was carrying the staff and everything. And then, suddenly he was gone and the staff was just…laying on the ground. Not sure what scared him away.’

He doesn’t wait for Tony’s response, instead stalking towards the crowd and demanding that everyone remain calm. Instead of quiet falling however, the shouting continues louder and louder, until Tony presses a shaking hand to his eyes, and tries to block out the world.

For one second, he allows himself to be Tony Stark, man who almost died in space and then again by his own weak, weak heart, rather than Tony Stark, billionaire superhero who draws in the spotlight.

He breathes deeply, and counts his heart beats.

One…two…three…

* * *

They don’t go for a triumphant meal of shawarma, as he had originally hoped. Instead, the Avengers disband as quickly as they were made, albeit with a lot less internal fighting. Fury seems, for once, almost lost for words at the incompetence of his dream team. Tony wants to viciously remind him how he had never asked to join this super secret boy band – had indeed said the exact opposite. How they hadn’t even wanted him on the team ( _Iron Man yes, Tony Stark no_ ), until the moment there was a galactic threat, and then they were breaking into his home to harass him.

‘You lost Loki AND the tesseract?’ Fury is repeating, over and over again, shaking his head. Thor is attempting to explain the situation, arms moving around wildly, whilst Rogers keeps glancing over at Tony. He isn’t sure if he is imagining the judgement in the good Captain’s eyes, or if there truly is blame being laid at his feet – or at his heart, more to the point. Either way, he’s had enough of this debrief. The two SHIELD agents have long gone, for “debriefing”, according to Fury, although that sounded rather ominous, and Banner had apparently fled already, disappearing (butt-naked? Tony would like to think so) as soon as the Hulk had calmed down from whatever had upset him about the stairs. He’ll be damned if he’ll sit and listen to Fury berate him any second longer, so he stands in the middle of Thor’s dramatic re-enactment, and gives a cold smile.

‘Gentlemen, it’s been a pleasure,’ he bites out. ‘But I am tired, and I’m also sore in places I didn’t even know existed, despite this body having done a looot of workouts, if you know what I mean.’

He goes for the suave wink, and spins towards the door, ignoring Roger’s gaze on his back.

‘Stark!’ Fury calls from behind, and suddenly the man is right next to him, glowering from his one eye. ‘We may need to speak to you again about all of this. But let’s not tempt fate and push you further right now.’

Their gazes both drop to the arc reactor glowing through his t-shirt.

‘We’ll take it from here,’ Fury continues. ‘And contact you if your services are required again.’

Tony has a moment of terrible clarity. He’s played nice with the Avengers for their first outing, but now, like any well-behaved consultant, he’s being benched, with an additional unspoken layer of blame for Loki’s escape.

‘Fuck you, Nick,’ he says, with a pleasant tone, and takes vindictive enjoyment in slamming the door as he leaves.

* * *

SHIELD tries to bury the fact that the Avengers did not save the day quite as they had planned. Tony can tell, because it takes until the news at 10pm for the story to break.

He is back at the Tower with Pepper. They had combed over the rooms with the most damage, trying to see what work needs to be done to fix it and help return all areas to living condition. There is a Loki-shaped dent in the floor, which will be a bitch to fill in, but he is well aware that in the coming days, there will be buildings to repair on a much grander scale throughout the city. Stark Industries will be leading the work.

Finally, they are just settling down for the evening, and he drops onto the couch with all the bone-deep weariness that comes from successfully preventing an alien invasion and avoiding near-certain death in space.

‘I deserve this,’ he tells Pepper, with a pathetic pout and dramatic wave of his hand when she wrinkles her nose at him downing yet another glass of whiskey. ‘Destroying a whole alien fleet, blah, blah, blah.’

They don’t call him genius for nothing – he’s smart enough to know it’s not an excuse he can use beyond today, so he plans to deploy it to full advantage for the rest of the evening.

‘I’m sorry, Sir,’ Jarvis’s voice cuts suddenly through the air. ‘I think you should see this.’

The television flicks on, filling the screen with a serious-faced woman blinking sternly behind her glasses.

‘-new footage from within Stark Tower,’ she says, shuffling some paperwork with business-like precision. Bold text scrolling beneath screams out “PERPETRATOR OF NEW YORK ATTACK BELIEVED TO HAVE ESCAPED”. ‘This is the first time airing it, so viewers are cautioned that, as with many of the scenes from today, some moments may be upsetting.’

Tony feels his fingers clench tightly around his empty glass as an unsteady phone recording begins to play. People are running and screaming as a pixelated Hulk roars and stomps across the screen. In the background, he can see a group of dark figures huddled around someone on the floor. The camera zooms closer, as the person recording the moment breathes heavily in the background, and the betrayal hits him when he realizes the leak must have come from a Stark Industries employee.

‘It appears that the creature known as the Hulk was still not subdued at the end of the fight,’ the newsreader’s voiceover begins to explain. ‘Indeed, it was last seen heading towards the outskirts of the city, and even more concerning is the fact that there have not been any attempts to find and halt it. A spokesperson for the military has stated they do not currently have enough manpower on the ground to address the issue, despite the incident from several years ago when this creature brought its own destruction to New York. Right now, they claim focus must be on searching for survivors in the destroyed buildings, prioritizing those within the epicenter of where the fighting took place.

This footage also shows a man on the ground – believed to be Tony Stark, who was seen earlier today fighting as Iron Man. Eyewitnesses say Mr Stark took ill, collapsing to the floor and appearing in significant medical distress for several minutes. His spokesperson has still not released a statement regarding his current status.’

He can feel Pepper shake slightly, where their shoulders are pressed against each other, and reaches out to grasp her hand. As his fingers brush against hers however, she pulls away abruptly, her eyes remaining transfixed to the screen.

‘On the right of the screen however, you can see the most disturbing outcome of this chaotic scene. The man – identified only as Loki – is believed to be instrumental in the attack against New York, as well as responsible for the damage caused in Stuttgart. He was being transported to more secure facilities when eyewitnesses claim he took advantage of the combined distraction of the Hulk and Stark’s emergency to steal a weapon and vanish. This footage certainly seems to support those statements.’

The recording shows a blue flash, and cuts suddenly the moment after Loki disappears from view. The newsreader’s face fills the screen once more, and the camera pans back to show her colleague sat beside her, shaking his head.

‘The number of casualties from today continues to rise, and already the good citizens of New York are confronted with the fact that the man who caused all of this has somehow escaped custody. Were all the aliens even destroyed? How do we know that tomorrow this won’t happen all over again?’

The woman tilts her head, listening intently for a moment to something, and then makes a noise of agreement.

‘President Ellis will be making a statement in ten minutes, and we just have word that Steve Rogers – otherwise known as Captain America – will be joining him to give an update. Until then, let’s go back to Tom, who is down near Grand Central.’

Tony sees a brief glimpse of destroyed buildings, soldiers marching around barking orders, and a man holding a microphone before he slashes the air with his hand, and the television switches off. The sudden silence is jarring.

‘Pep, I’m sorry,’ he tries, his mouth dry. She still hasn’t looked at him, frozen on the couch. ‘I told you Loki escaped – you knew already.’

This seems to be the wrong thing to say, as she abruptly turns to face him, breathing heavily.

‘And yet, you didn’t think to include the small fact of your heart presumably having problems?’ she seethes, infusing her voice with a deadly tone.

‘You just saw me fly through a wormhole carrying a nuclear bomb,’ he snaps. ‘Excuse me for forgetting some minor incident-’

‘MINOR? You think your arc reactor having problems is MINOR?’ Pepper lurches off the couch, pacing back and forth. Her fingers tangle into her hair. ‘Did you even go see a doctor afterwards, Tony?’

He knows his silence is damning, but he has nothing to say in defence. The arc reactor sits heavily in his chest, and he knows – _he knows_ – that he needs to exchange it for a new one, or at least examine it more closely. But he cannot bring himself to explain to her the fear he feels. The feel of poison trickling through his veins from the Palladium reactor still lingers in his mind, and the last thing he wants to do is pull out the reactor and discover yet another problem with no easy solution in sight. Not now, after seeing the darkness of space and realizing _shit, there are creatures out there seeking to destroy our planet and it is bigger than all of us._

‘I can’t do this right now,’ Pepper mutters, the tense anger leaving her body all at once. She walks out the door, and Tony is left alone.

‘Jarvis?’ he croaks, after sitting in silence for a long time.

‘Sir?’

‘Find me something meaningless to watch, will you?’

The television springs back to life, this time showing some animated cartoon animals running around. He watches the cartoons throughout the night, despite not paying attention to a single word being spoken. Exhaustion threatens to pull him under, but he ignores it; he’s too afraid of what he may see when he closes his eyes.

**Author's Note:**

> Apologies for the lack of Loki in the prologue...Never fear, he will be appearing asap as we jump into the actual story. 
> 
> If anyone wonders about the staff still being there when Steve woke up: I took the assumption that future Steve returned all stones to the correct moment when they were taken (as promised), but in this case, it didn't save the branching timeline because Loki poofed away with the tesseract. How it is back in staff form after Endgame, you ask? Well, let's pretend the Ancient One was the first person future Steve visited, and she helped place them back in the correct form...


End file.
